After losing the last two elections, especially the big one last fall, right wingers and Republicans were in quite a funk. They were fighting among themselves and couldn’t seem to get anything right.

Now that they’ve succeeded, for the time being, in disrupting town hall meetings, encouraging people to bring handguns and assault rifles to presidential speeches and scaring the bejeebus out of some particularly gullible citizens, they feel like they’re kings of the world.

The feeling won’t last.

Progressives and liberals are waking from their end of summer naps and telling Democrats, albeit in a more sedate manner than the right wing extremists and astroturfers, that they had better not cave in to the wackery. If they do cave, they will soon be looking for work.

The so called public option is not negotiable. If the Dems and Obama drop the public option, they will not like the reaction their erstwhile supporters will register immediately and in the next few election cycles.

Not being idiots, the Dems and Obama will find a way to keep it. It may be somewhat hamstrung, but it will be there. And, as with other programs like social security, medicare and medicaid, the initial shortcomings will not constrain future improvement of the program.

When the bill, which seems ready to be named in honor of Teddy Kennedy, does go through and is signed by Obama, the right wingers and Republicans will revert to a funk even deeper than what we’ve recently seen.

Victory, they had convinced themselves, was within grasp. It was so close that they could almost touch it. But then, again, Nike will have eluded their grasp.

In one sense, it may be fun to watch. But in another, it will mean more insane and irrational rage and fury that may well lead to violence.

But of course, it won’t be the right wingers’ or Republicans’ fault. They’ll find a way to blame it on Obama.